Sunday, December 2, 2007

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Sunday reacted angrily to a suggestion that the US should send its troops to secure Islamabad's nuclear arsenal, asserting that it had "adequate retaliatory capacity to defend its strategic assets and sovereignty".Reacting to reports in a British newspaper that a top US security expert had suggested that the White House should send troops to secure the nuclear assets in the event of chaos in Pakistan, Foreign Office spokesman Mohammad Sadiq said the contents of the news reports were "outlandish musings by an academic".Referring to the comment as "irresponsible conjectures about external contingency plans", Sadiq said "these are very dangerous ideas and people espousing them should be aware that Pakistan possesses adequate retaliatory capacity to defend its strategic assets and sovereignty".The spokesman rejected the suggestion that there is "any danger of Pakistan's strategic assets falling in the wrong hands"."Pakistan's strategic assets are as safe as that of any other nuclear weapon state. These assets are fully safeguarded and secure under the protection of a well established command and control system," Sadiq said in a statement.